Tests
by KitCat Italica
Summary: Sequel to Lessons. Bruce's thoughts directed at Joker as they get it on the very next night. Another PWanypretenseofP, very not-work-safe, graphic J/B slash


Tests

**Because I can't leave things one-sided when it comes to this pairing. If one of these guys has his say, the other's gotta have his. So now it's Bruce's turn. Have fun. ^^**

**And Happy (belated) Heath Ledger Day! I'm sorry I couldn't finish this in time for his 32nd birthday, April 4th, but I got it out as soon as I could. So it'll have to be a belated celebration. Because what better way to celebrate the life and work of one of the greatest actors of our time than by having one of his most colorful characters have hot gay sex with said character's soulmate? :D**

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><p>I remember the first time I fucked you. Well, the first time I <em>chose<em> to fuck you. The first few times, those first few weeks, it couldn't quite be called _choice_. No more than our usual battles are. Yes, we are fully responsible for our actions against each other in this city we've grown to share, but I don't think you viewed leaving as a viable option any more than I did. Fate is our mutual snare, my lo…

…_my love_.

That is what you are to me now.

God have mercy on us both.

No, God have mercy on everyone _else_. They'll need it, they'll deserve it, more than we ever could.

But the first time we _knew_ each other, and the several times after that, everything was a mess. You remember, I know you do. It was a delirious time of my life, of sheer insanity. Always half-drunk, or maybe too sober to be thinking clearly. All I knew was that it was a necessary release. Just as Batman is. It was an action, a fact of life, as unavoidable as your smiling scars and my darkened cowl. And my id blotted out any moral objections my superego tried to raise.

Until that night. The night I realized just _what_ it was I had been doing to you, or you to me, or both of us to each other and ourselves. I hadn't just been trying to win against you; I had been _fucking _you. You weren't just bringing yourself intolerably closer to my own tattered soul; you had brought yourself _inside_ of me. In every physical and metaphorical sense of those actions.

I couldn't let you do that anymore.

I wasn't going to, _couldn't_ let myself lose control to your whims and my own perverse instincts again. But that night…later, I tried to tell myself that you _made_ me, but now I know that's a flat-out lie. If anything, I made _you_.

Before I knew it, the calculated decision was made, as I stripped you to your skin and cuffed your wrists behind your back, barely taking the time to slick up with my saliva before I took you hard and unannounced. Every stroke was filled with purpose now, and I couldn't deny that I was fully aware of my actions and their consequences that time around.

You nearly broke me that night.

I've never told you that, but maybe you already knew. I wanted to kill you that night.

I wanted to fuck you to death.

And maybe if we had been two uncomplicated criminals, I would have been able to. You would have bled out, a crucial vein would have popped, you would have gone into shock, a long-dormant aneurysm would have ruptured, your heart would have beat too fast to maintain itself, _something_. You would've been gone before you came. I was _that_ brutal.

But all you did was laugh. Your knees, shins, and half your face were bloodied, scraped raw across the concrete with each of my domineering movements. Your wrists were chafed purple from yanking to get free, maybe to escape, maybe to touch yourself, maybe to kick me away to reciprocate the same treatment; maybe just from reflexive contraction like the rest of your body. Who knows what exactly I had been hoping to evoke from you, but gasping cackles were all that bubbled to the surface with every pump.

You knew, didn't you. You knew that I was close to the edge, closer than ever. That I was going to personally end your life that night, one way or another. And that I'd spend every moment afterward screaming at myself in the shower, stroking myself to drown me in my broken shame of horrifying orgasms, too cracked beyond repair to leave my memories.

Maybe I sensed you knew, just before I spilled into you. It held me on the edge, that realization. And I was a coward.

I stopped my motions. I couldn't do it. I had failed.

And you laughed harder into your own bloodstains.

I was trying to catch my breath, but I was still inside your squeezing, pulsing body. I still had to finish this to leave, and at least end it with a shred of dignity still intact. As if it wasn't too late at that point for any show of nobility. But I had to bring myself back. I couldn't let myself bring the Batman down. I didn't deserve that honor.

So I resumed the halted actions, meekly and softly rocking into you. A far cry from my previous fare, but I could at the least _pretend_ to show some compassion after sinking so low. There was hardly anything left to lose at that point.

I will never understand what happened after that. I'll never understand _you_. Of all the societal deviants I've come across, you have to be the most enigmatic. Anyone else would have somewhat welcomed the change of pace, and would have gloated further at my sign of semi-surrender.

But you couldn't stand it.

You let out this moan – you remember, I bet, though you may have tried to include it among your blocked and repressed memories. I, on the other hand, have savored that sound in my head nearly every early morning afterward. And you didn't stop there. You writhed and wriggled, what anyone else would have done in the face of the _preceding_ treatment. You keened against the gentle brushes inside you, and now I knew your struggles against the handcuffs were motivated with the intent of breaking loose. Maybe even of leaving.

But I was the one who left you, after a warm and spreading orgasm for each of us in quick succession. I uncuffed you and fled like the coward I am, but even if I had stayed I don't think you would have been _able_ to muster a rebuke. We were both too far gone in shock for that.

From there, I realized that the key to breaking the beast was _pleasure_, the tender baring of a human soul that you (and sometimes myself) always denied that we both possessed. We were men of a different mettle, you said, and our carnal appetites unsheathed our greatest elements through the roughest interaction, the most extreme of fucking sessions, the silent petrified agony of severed veins and split, bleeding skin. Of _pain_. And with those two opposing ideologies of what our trysts should embody, we entered a fray of an entirely different kind.

You dealt out the worst pain I've endured. You'd bind me in the most inhumane of fashions, laughing yourself silly as you rode me into the night, while I screamed your name and panted like the cheapest of whores. We _were_ each others' whores, and maybe still are, lending our favors to each other exclusively, for no one else can afford the steep price to be paid for our services.

You'd press your thumb into my shame like smearing a crushed insect's guts across the glass, bringing me _just_ to the edge before backing off and retreating into the shadows without a trace, except for the agonizing erection you'd coaxed from me. Restrained as I was, I could do nothing about it, waiting sometimes for hours on end for you to return and _finish_ the damn job, knowing you were scarcely yards away just out of my sight, to better watch the beginnings of my mindless thrusting into the air. That was what brought you back, letting me _think_ of you to just barely suffice at getting me off, while the display would inevitably bring the sensation of semen spilling onto my ass not three seconds after my own ended. Timing your body just so I could _feel_ the worst of the shame crush my splintered spirit, my low in sync with your high.

You'd untie me after you finished, and I'd summon the will somehow to grab you and hold you close, pressing the kisses we both hated into your skin. But it was the one way I had found of getting you on edge, so as much as it repulsed me the next day how I had to nuzzle your neck, weave through your hair, caress your genitals, give you _affection_ to gain an advantage, I still followed through with my pledge to _never let you win_.

I certainly wasn't winning either, but I had never created this distilled monster of Batman to gain a total victory. That was always out of the question. There is no saving my soul at this point.

Until…

Wow, you _must_ be having a potent effect on me, to get me cracking jokes like _that_. To think either one of us could be saved through this new bond we've forged. Through anything.

But all the same…

If anything could raise us up, this is it. Because as wrong as it may seem for two enemies, two rivals, two _men_ of broken souls and scarred psyches to have found a painful, bastardized rendition of that thing called _love_…

…it's still something.

And I think – I _hope_ – it's enough. For me. For you. For _us_.

I don't quite know exactly when the shift happened in my motives. When the actions of gentle lovemaking I initiated began to spring from the desire of their intended aim. When I didn't pleasure you to make you weak, but simply…to pleasure you. To make you feel…_good_. Why I wanted you to feel good, I didn't think I would ever know. In retrospect, I was just treading the same path of denial I had always walked.

I didn't want to admit I was falling in love with you. That you _meant_ something to me beyond a man who was only my biggest obstacle. You had become the man, the _person_, I shared my most intimate desires with, my core persona, not Batman or Bruce Wayne or any variant in between. Just…me. Whoever I am, he was only ever expressed in his purest form with you. His best, his worst, everything. And no one but you would ever know him as you did.

I tried so desperately to teach you pleasure, without even consciously knowing why I worked so hard each night to have you accept my bared heart and soul, now as naked as my body was with yours each night. But now I realize you had already accepted both. And I had returned the acceptance in kind. We just didn't know it, didn't _recognize _it, until it was mutually understood how we had staked our claim.

Last night I told you that I loved you. After we left the construction site together, I brought you to my home, into my own bed, and I showed you. I demonstrated all you had tried to teach me.

There were no restraints, but that was the only thing missing to separate it from the torture you put me through for eight months. But this time, _I _dealt it out. I claimed you as _mine_ in the first morning light, cementing this strangling, horrendous bond we've been born into together with every harsh, rapid thrust. You pushed back on my every stroke, my nails clawed your bleeding hips, you moaned, I gasped, our knees fought for traction on my silken sheets to fight our joined momentum, our sweat mingled together, you looked over your shoulder to softly moan my name (_Bruce_ this time, not _Bats_) in my ear as my chin hooked over your collarbone, before biting down with a shout of _Joker_ as I watched you climax into my hand and I was coming inside you and _fuck_ –

You left not twenty minutes later. Said you had "things to do."

And now, as I walk up the stairs to the second floor of my manor, I'm not sure if I'm dreading what I might find in my bedroom…or _thrilled_.

Usually a day at Wayne Enterprises only appeals to me when I can spend it working on my next project in my nightly crusade against crime. Against _you_, most of the time. But today even that couldn't keep me engaged. All day my mind was on last night, and how it might shape _tonight_. Meetings had me staring out the window, wondering where you are, while testing my latest weaponry made me think of fighting you, and what our new pseudo-struggle in my bed might entail.

Today at work lasted eight hours, sixteen minutes, and forty-three seconds. Dinner after that took seventy-six minutes, nine seconds.

I think you finally succeeded.

I _am_ going crazy because of you.

Congratulations, Joker. You brought the Batman down by making him fall. In love. With you. I hope you're happy.

I know I'm fucking ecstatic. High, even. Just thinking about you.

And about what I want from you tonight.

I have no idea _what_ it is you're planning next, whether your reference to "things to do" involves your usual mass-murdering agenda, something I should be concerned about stopping, or…what I _hope_ it means. But regardless, somehow I'll get you back in my arms tonight, and when I do, I know where I want things to go. What I want is…

God. I'm at my bedroom door. And you'd better be behind it, or I think I'll go mad from leaving you for so long. Usually the drive to be in close proximity to you isn't quite this strong, but it's there now, and it's alive, and I can't fight it and I don't _want_ to. I'm tired of denying the bliss you make me feel, the surrender I've come to crave both _to_ you and _from_ you at the same time. Last night gave me a taste of nirvana. Tonight, I want to take it all for us both, and drown myself in this love. Your love. _You_.

_If_ that's what you have in mind, too. I still can't trust your veiled intentions entirely. You lead me on a haphazard guessing game with every word, every gesture, every _look_. To deny that it's become my favorite puzzle to solve would taste a lie.

I open the door before I even make the conscious decision too. I've delayed this long enough; my want for you has waited all day. You may not even be behind the door, but somehow I get the feeling you're there. Maybe I just _want_ you there so badly I'm deluding myself. But as I enter the room, I know this feeling is too strong to be conjured from my own mind.

…candles?

I blink. The lights are off, but the room is filled with a soft glow.

…_candles?_

I'm not sure what to think. Once again, caught between desire and edginess. Now I'm not sure which one will win out.

Until I see you, lounging on my bed in the middle of the candles' warmth, and upon noticing the door opening, you open your black-rimmed eyes and send that green gaze at me…

_Finally._

…what are you doing? I still can't form words, I'm so caught off-guard. Mixing you with anything burning is usually a very lethal combination. But the way you're situated on my bed, shaded just _so_ in the dozens of flickering pinpricks of firelight, with those _eyes_…

And now you're smiling with your mouth along with your eyes, with that light that I'm sure is only reserved for me. Even more so than for killing people.

I hope.

Wordlessly you ease off the bed and start toward me. All the while I'm paralyzed by my apprehension. I finally claim the wits enough to close the door behind me and ask, "…what are you doing?"

You flash a smirk in amusement at my skepticism. "What does it _look _like I'm doing?"

Quite honestly, Joker, "Like you're about to set my house on fire."

Now you're slowing toward me, smiling wider, letting a low chuckle loose from your throat. "Now Bats, you know I've never been one for using the _same_ gag _twice_." I stiffen slightly at the reference to the last time one of my enemies burned my parents' mansion to the ground, but you're getting closer, and the room is getting warmer with your every step…

"Besides," you continue, "I thought it would…set the _mood_ and all. Or is that not what playboy vigilantes r'into these days?"

You're right in front of me now, your nose nearly touching mine, and as your hands spread across my shoulders it eases me enough to lean forward, brushing our noses together. This is such a foreign experience to me – not just to have this tenderness with you, but that _you_ are the one to instigate it. Usually you shun this type of interaction between us; it's always been your weakness that I've exploited. But now…

"So no gasoline on the floor?" is all I can think of to say, and you hum once before…

_Jesus._

You've never kissed me this softly, this gently, so chaste yet so enticing at the same time. My eyes are closed without a second thought, and my hands move up your sides as yours rest still at my shoulders. Each point of contact is pulled into a pulsing hypersensitivity, spikes of heat striking my blood at each location.

You lessen the contact so minutely until your lips are a hair's breadth from mine. Our eyes open, and we're still so close our noses touch, with only the slightest lean forward necessary to lock our mouths together again. Your eyes speak exactly how I feel inside: calm, focused, knowing. And utterly enthralled with the man we're on the verge of holding to us.

"Not tonight," you whisper, and I bring you in for another, firmer kiss, wrapping my arms around your purple-garbed back. It's one of those times where I realize just how _warm_ you are, how _solid _and _real_ you feel when I hold you to me. Your hands curl over to clutch my biceps, which nearly tremble at your touch. Your lips begin to change things up, nipping almost playfully. Your tongue is flicking out, like it always does, only this time with the purpose of swiping at _my_ lips, not yours. I must say I like this better.

I'm certainly enjoying these kisses, so unlike what I've ever experienced with you. Even more than I've experienced with any date, any girlfriend, even Rach –

You notice my brief pause, and in response you deepen the kiss, requesting access with your tongue.

You've never _requested_ access before.

You've forced that wet muscle down my throat countless times without a care, yes, but now you're lapping at my lips, _asking permission_. Far more than you usually do – the most you've ever done of that nature is a sly glance up at me before you suck me off, or a hand cupping my jaw with fingers probing to be suckled in tandem with your thrusts behind me. You follow through with the actions you know I'll love just as much as I'll hate myself for loving them, with you completely uncaring whether I signed up for it or not.

But now it's _you_ that I love. Which makes everything so much more enjoyable. And that's why I willingly open my mouth to your tongue for the second time of my life, letting you lick at my teeth and drown me in your wild world of sweet _sensation_.

My head touches back on the closed door, and you reach beside me for the lock. I'll worry about explaining this chain reaction of a relationship to Alfred tomorrow. Tonight, I need us to belong to _us_.

But more than that…

…I need myself…

…to belong…to you.

The slightest moan catches in my throat as my inner drive for tonight finally forms into actual thoughts in my head. That's what I want, I'm sure of it. Last night I claimed you as mine in my own bed. Tonight, I want that final surrender, losing myself to you as I've tried not to for so long. You've trusted me with your body and soul; now I need to trust you with mine.

I pull you closer to me, guiding us both behind me as the rest of my back finds the door. You're pressed against me now, and our chests, our bellies, our groins, our thighs, everything's flaring with flowing _heat_. You moan at the contact, and my knees are nearly buckling under you after that noise you send into my mouth. It makes me grip you tighter, and you hold me against you like the desperate lovers we're starting more and more to resemble.

My right hand reaches to the back of your neck to pull your head closer to mine, causing the heat between our lips to start _aching_ with need. This time I guide my body in the direction your hands are pulling me. I swivel us around to pull you away from the door, deeper into the room with you in my arms. You're the one walking forward, so you help guide me to avoid the candles until we make it to the bed.

You're gathered in my lap now as I sit on the edge of my – now _our_ – bed, and your erection is rubbing against mine as you shift slightly. It's so much more _noticeable_ when I'm not trapped in my armor. You seem to be of the same mind, your hands running all through my hair that you can now fully indulge in without the cowl to hinder your actions. Your left fingers brush down my jaw line, tilting my chin up at you to meet your smothering mouth at a better angle, what with you perched on top of me.

Your hips are rocking in my lap, and you maneuver them to better rest on top of my crotch. You're preparing to ride me that way, I realize. To have me take you, as is what usually happens when this much gentleness is achieved. This time though, you seem to have a goal in sight, one that differs from mine. You want to prove what I proved to you last night: that the other's method of lovemaking can be reciprocated, even _relished_. We've spent eight months teaching each other, and now it's time to put our knowledge to the test.

But this isn't the way I want you to sit for this exam.

My hands circle to your shoulder blades, and I fall backward to the sheets. You're a bit startled at the change to a more dominant position for you, the way you half-yelp into my mouth as our kiss continues unbroken. I arch my back into the curve of your own lithe body, our spines bending to the same shape, one folded inside the other before I crash you down on top of me in earnest.

It's so _good_, so _overpowering_, that I'm losing my sense of place; my kisses are becoming more desperate now, my hands scrambling for purchase on your hair, your face, your back, your chest, _anywhere_ that's part of you. My hips jump up into yours out of instinct, and you moan at the spike of pressure, and I'm whimpering…

You pause, and break our kiss after one last brush of wet suction on my tongue. Your breathing is as loud as mine now, and I'm not sure who's quivering more. You must have taken the delegated position of being on top of me to mean something, for it is you that aligns us with the bed properly, our heads at the pillows. Your lips leave a tiniest trace of red greasepaint on my neck, then trace to my ear, nipping just once before you whisper to me.

"Tell me what you want," your voice says, and my heart is pounding so fast I'm going to burst. "Tell me what you want me to do." My chin tilts up and I give a soft cry as you nuzzle my ear with your nose slowly, tracing its shape.

"_Bruce…_"

You're going to make me die from this heat in my soul if you keep this up.

"_My Bat…_"

Yes, _yours_, only _yours_, all I want…

"_My Bruce…_"

"Fuck me."

Your breath is hot and heavy in my ear as your licking and nuzzling, gentle grinding further south and caressing further up, stops at my words. I'm not even bothering to contemplate the words that are spilling from my mouth; they're the surest words I've ever spoken to you.

"I want you to fuck me," I whisper. A shiver shocks through us, whether originating from you or me is difficult to say. "I want you to fuck me so hard I scream your name and…" – I can barely catch my breath for the words – "…I lose myself…in you."

You don't move. I slide my eyes open, and looking sideways I meet yours, which are considering and judging the situation. You know though, I can tell; you can sense just _how_ much I need this. Please give this to me, for once, when I _need_ you charging inside me as I rise to meet your every thrust…

You stir in the candlelight, and plant the tenderest kiss on my cheek. I close my eyes, lost to every other aspect of the world but your lips on my face. You've learned your lessons of pleasure quite well. Another kiss to my temple, and I know it's going to happen, and there's no stoppi –

"No."

I freeze at the single word you have just uttered.

…what…?

…what do you mean, _no?_

If you have proven yourself skilled at anything, it's reading my needs and urges, my motives and reasons, with deadly accuracy. You've always said we're two forces of nature, catering to each other's whims and wills to oppose and, yes, _complete_ each other. Denying _this_, denying me at my weakest, at my most vulnerable, is _not_ completing me. What could you possibly mean by…_NO?_

Your breath stills my sudden upsurge in shaking, and your whisper…oh God…

_"I'm going to make…the sweetest love to you."_

Oh, _GOD…_

Your head is buried in my neck as your kisses scorch where it meets my shoulder. Your hands are roaming my torso, reaching to my throat. For a lingering moment your palms encircle my neck, and I sigh as I let you. You could crush my windpipe at any moment, you're a psychotic _killer_ – yet the way you're holding my throat so surely, without any increase in pressure, I know in my heart you're no ordinary murderer in the slightest.

Your hands dip to loosen the knot in my necktie, and when it's wide enough you loop it off my head and throw it to the side. Normally you save your own garments for gags, blindfolds, or other restraints. But for once, that's not your order of business tonight.

Your fingers race down my torso to undo buttons at lightning speed, faster than I can count them. One, two, five, _seven_, now you're reaching inside my pants to free the rest of the white fabric, _fuck_…

"Shhh," you whisper, and I realize I cursed out loud. But you're not requesting silence as much as calming me down. Something _lovers_ do. _Lovers_ splay each other's dress shirts and suit jackets apart to admire and leave scarlet makeup trails up the other's abs and chest. _Lovers_ meet in meaningful kisses of fiery passion as one sits up to strip his torso bare the rest of the way. _Lovers_ softly peel away the other's leather gloves with their teeth to _feel_ one's hands on the other's naked back, every fingertip that traces a scar eliciting another groan of want and undying _need_…

Maybe, as both our hands work at your own clothes, sifting jackets and vest away, unknotting the tie and loosing suspenders, kissing my way down your shirt buttons as more and more flesh becomes available, we're not so far away from that status after all.

Your shirt hangs loosely on your shoulders now, and slowly my hands circle your waist, run up your sides with my thumbs trailing your subtle abdominals, until a sharp gasp leaves your lips when I reach your sensitive nipples. They harden under my touch, and I wrap the left one in a kiss, stroking the other with my one hand, while my free arm rubs up and down the curve of your back. You sigh in the grasp of heaven, half-straddling me, half-sitting in my lap, your fingers toying through the lowermost tips of my hair. You lay your scar-ridged cheek down on top of my head, and I can just feel that you've closed your eyes in quiet bliss as I gently pander to your chest.

My hand on your back gropes at the blue fabric, and you flex your arms backward to allow the shirt to fall free. It joins the rest of our clothes on the floor, strategically placed so as not to touch the candles on the way down. You grab me to you again and I meet your kiss with zeal, but then one of your hands glides down my chest, down lower, into my pants, _Joker – _

Your lips stifle my sharp cry of electric shock, and your body leans down to guide me back to rest on the bed. My legs instinctively part to allow you greater access to me. You growl with deep satisfaction at the prominent throbbing in your hand, and soon it becomes so tight that you reach my zipper just before I do it myself, freeing the pressure to my great relief.

I watch the dark green, faintly blonde top of your head as you snake your lips down my body to where your hand once was, and your hands work my garments down past my hips. I'm so hard I'm on fire, and you had better know that this sight is only for you now, you alone. I'm completely erect in an offering to you. And your eyes seem to know just what to do with me.

I let you push my pants and boxers off me the rest of the way, kicking my shoes and socks away myself. I'm naked before you now for the thousandth time, yet for the first time I feel so completely exposed to your mercy, your every whim and desire. This time, though, out of all the other times before, I'm not denying that I _want_ anything you have in store for me, _anything._ _Everything._

Your own pants are sliding off now, your own shoes and socks flipped off your feet to clatter to the floor, and now you're stretching back over me, claiming me to your inferno as dear _fuck_ your lips are devouring me, our cocks are pounding together as you take us both in hand, working our erections as they slide against each other. You've stretched yourself on top of me, and before I know it my legs are fully spread beneath your rocking hips and our gasping breaths, wanting to be taken.

A string of saliva follows the retreat of your lips, but my moan at the loss of contact is cut short as your hand at our arousals reaches up to replace where your mouth was. Two fingers are proffered, and without hesitation I'm taking them in, sucking our musk off your digits. You utter "_Bats_" in a hushed tone at the sensation, and I know from the slightest continued rhythm of your hips that you're imagining your cock in your fingers' place.

My tongue laps at your nails, and for once I don't taste anything vile underneath them. There's none of my blood to taste in your claws as there usually is, and it's so pleasant to know the feel of just your _fingers_ on my palate that I barely notice in the midst of my humming when your free hand reaches for my nightstand. My nightstand, what are you doing with tha –

Oh.

_Oh._

A shuddering gasp draws past the fingers in my mouth.

_Holy fuck, you're going to use – _

This is new.

Never once with you have I used lubricant. In the beginning it was too out of control to even _consider_ such necessities, and once we became more conscious and exacting of our actions it would never suffice for our purposes with the other. The only options available were whatever bodily fluids we had handy out in the streets, which was either blood, spit, or semen. I would occasionally settle for a sparse layer of saliva, but I would never cut for your blood on purpose (that would be falling to _your_ methods, and _letting you win_), and most of our ejaculate would dry before I would instigate another round. _You_, on the other hand, would have no qualms – would even think it a sick joke – about using my own blood that you spilled in your tutoring sessions; but your purpose _was_ pain, not an easy lay. We were too powerful for such trivial precautions in your eyes.

I bought this particular bottle you're now grasping in your hand some months ago, over a year now. A backup fund, in case a Parisian actress or Milanese runway diva wanted to get right down to business from the first (and only) date. If I found the time or the will in the daylight hours to keep up that aspect of the playboy charade.

Suffice it to say, I haven't touched the handle to my nightstand drawer in the past eight months. There have been other…developments to keep me occupied.

Now, however, those developments involve _you_ grinding against my cock, _you_ removing your fingers from my last lingering kiss as they glisten with my saliva, _you_ popping that bottle open and spreading a generous portion of it onto those same digits, _you _caressing my face so tenderly with your free hand as you gaze down at me with that expression I'd given up hope of seeing on your face, _you_ guiding those shining fingers past my groin, down to my entrance…

My vision shakes out of focus for a second of sharp euphoria as you slide the first finger inside me.

_This._

Oh, _Joker_, God, _fuck_, _PLEASE JOKER – _

I've never –

_Holy – _

Never done this, no other man, not with women –

_FUCK – _

Never with _you_, so _easily_ inside me, God, _inside me – _

I'm screaming, not knowing quite what, except _more, another_ –

_Yes_, another finger, sweet Jesus, will you – _OH YES, YES, RIGHT THERE – _

I can't see your face, can't see anything anymore. My eyes are rolling up in my head in fields of white bliss, my hands clawing into the sheets so tightly I could tear the fabric apart. You've finger-fucked me before, sent your tongue in there, any manner of objects as well as your cock, but with _this_, so _gentle_, so _smooth_, so _wanted_…

Over and over you thrust your fingers in and out of me; over and over you jar against my prostate just _so_. Your two fingers scissor me, open me up to you, stretch me for what's to follow. Soon it's enough for a third finger, and it burns so good –

– _JOKER – _

I'm all-out riding your fingers now, my hips bucking into the air again and again, my cock bouncing up at your face with every motion. Precome is weeping from the head now, and at the curious tongue that laps a bead of it up I scream into the night, the tightening in my balls growing by the second.

One last near-caress to my prostate – which I _know_ is going to make me come, I'm just _sure _of it – and your fingers are withdrawn from my stretched ass. I'm absurdly brought back to last night, and I realize the biting irony that the tables have been turned: _you_ are the one removing your fingers now, while _I'm_ the one on my back, breathless and begging for release. But you're not going to bring me off through the controlling manipulation that we have both so perfected over each other's bodies these past eight months; no, tonight you're going to let me _free_ while at your mercy all at once.

Once again, a shadow of that thing called love. But now, the difference is that it's understood, and felt the same way. Both through the joy of pleasure, just as we became one under gasping pain last night.

Your free hand never did leave my face, and as I open my eyes to you, you hold my cheek tenderly, your eyes wide and looming over me with an air of utter _longing_. _Affection_. I'm flushed and panting from what you just put me through, but it's _you_ with the wonderment, _you_ with the reverence and admiration for _me_.

"Bats…" you whisper, your thumb separating from the other digits to run softly across my face. My hands, shaking so badly still, unclench from the sheets and rise to the sides of your neck to pull myself into sitting up, meeting you in a breathy kiss. You make a small sound, barely a murmur into my mouth, and it speaks with all we both feel.

The kiss turns fiery, deep and moving, claiming everything within the other's mouth we can gain contact with, your questing tongue running the grooves of my molars, my own tracing your scars from the inside. God, your _scars_. Their tactile sensations feed an anchor to my brain, confirming with every lick and savor that this is _you_, the _Joker_, _my_ Joker, the man I've hated for so long, in a distant corner of my morality still love to hate, the man who is the other monster in this city who stormed into my reality claiming to be my other half. The man who delights in painting his face as he sees fit, who breaks people's minds and hopes to pieces at his whimsy, who kills for his impulse of an agenda that all adds up to opposing _me_. And always the scars remain. Scars I'll never understand, nor do I want to; right now their meaning is clear.

Their meaning is you.

I trace my fingers down them both on either side of your face, my tongue following suit on your left cheek from the inside at the same rate. Your hand had grabbed the bottle of lube again from where you set it to the side on the mattress earlier, but at my triple-felt caress on your perfect deformity you drop it with a shudder and a cry. You've nearly fumbled at this next section of the test. I don't blame you.

My left hand leaves your face to reach the bottle myself, and I kiss you hard once again before breaking apart to focus on pouring a liberal amount of the liquid onto my right palm. You rest your sweat-smeared forehead on mine, watching my hands as I am, panting.

The bottle is placed on top of the nightstand, and my oiled hand finds your cock, wraps around and pumps slowly along its girth, spreading the precome along with it. Your eyes close, but you make no immediate sound, just breathe heavier and harder with every stroke until each exhale is a grunt, each inhale a gasp. Your hips have started thrusting in rhythm with my movements, the movements of a spectacle I'm watching and can't turn away from. You may have closed your eyes, but I _can't_; I'm mesmerized by my flesh slipping back and forth along your length, in and out of my hand, knowing all the while that next it's going to be my anus you'll thrust into, spread apart, rub along the edge, disappear inside, and if it's anything like now it's going to be so _smooth and easy_, _Jok – _

I choke on your name out loud, and your hand without warning shoots down to bat my hand away, grasping your dick yourself and squeezing the base. Stilling your instincts so as not to come on the spot just yet. I almost set that off with a hand job and your name. We've come too far to slip up now, though. Not yet.

My slippery hand is currently out of a job, so while you attempt to catch your breath and find your focus again, my hand slides to your hip, where the cuts from my fingernails last night still tattoo your bruised skin. As the pads of my fingers graze past each scabbed ridge, my other hand finds the same on your elbow to stroke, where I crashed it down on the concrete, also last night, after pitching that wily knife of yours away. Your breathing stills more at my touches, the touches that send lingering reminders of the injuries I _have_ inflicted on you. Of the pain that I've still given to you, that you need for some grounding in this world of pleasure you're not quite accustomed to handing out.

Your hand leaves your straining erection and slides to meet my own at your elbow, and you send me gradually back to the bed. Your lips stay on mine for lengthy periods of time in one position, not pulsing or nipping as much as just _holding_. Jesus, you know how to master us both so well, so _quickly_. My chest is heaving in a faster tempo with each subtle movement of those sinful lips, my hips darting up to yours abruptly and unabashedly, I can't hold onto my body, it's slipping away with your every squeeze of my hand, each tweak of my nipple, every spark of friction between our groins…

"Spread your legs."

My eyes fly open. You're hovering above me, a spark in your eyes I'm not quite sure how to classify beyond _magnetic_ and _electrifying_. You've stretched my thighs apart yourself more times than I can count, and just as many times have I reluctantly submitted to my pain-induced high, but now…

I could turn back now. You'd give me that choice if I wanted it.

That's why I only hold your gaze for a heartbeat longer before my legs are parting open to the air and your warmth only inches away, letting all defenses go along with them. I've never been good at hiding things from you, but now I'm not even _trying_ to. The Batman is reduced to a gasping, sweaty hooker before your eyes, because tonight I don't want to fight you, but to make the final surrender in the name of this feeling you've swept me into. To throw my arms out and fall backward off the edge, with no one to catch me but you. To drown in your possession. Your love. Your _life_.

Your hands travel to the insides of my thighs, making me draw a breath even more ragged than the others, and they ease my legs a bit further apart. My head reclines back at the sensation, and now there's no cover, no going back, no shield any longer – my neck is exposed, my mouth parted open with gasps and pants, my spine contracted slightly in preparation, my bent knees wide apart in the air with my throbbing cock raised without shelter.

My soul is bared, yours for the picking, yours to cradle in your hands or crush without a thought. It's all come down to this, and what you will choose to do with me, naked and defenseless as we've made me become in my own home.

My eyes are closed, awaiting the undetermined sensory information from other nerve endings.

It's all up to you.

You could stab into my heart right now and leave me here to die in this very position, and I wouldn't be ab –

Shit.

Shit.

_Shit._

_Holy – _

_ HOLY SHIT – _

You're starting to – it's – why –

_Fuck_ – _fuck fuck FUCK OH GOD FUCK PLEASE JOKER – _

_ PLEASE – _

SHIT –

GODDAMNYOU, JOKER, _PLEASE JUST – _

– _YES – _

The head's in, but now there's _more, FUCK – _

Why is it – the lube…so _painless_…never quite like – DEAR _GOD_ – never like _this_ –

You're moaning and I'm screaming into the candlelight, my eyes snap up to your flickering image, whether from the flames or my bliss –

– _fuck _me_, yes – _

Your face blurs in my vision again.

You seem so deep in already, but then you push in further, and there's still _more_, splitting my muscles apart even deeper inside…

Your cock pounds against my heartbeat, can feel it even deeper than ever – there's _more_ to go? _Fuck YES – _

All the way, Joker, let me have you _all_…

God, stretching me apart so _deep_, and deeper _still_, I'm gonna black out – wait…

_There._

You're – Joker, you're…you're inside me all the way, with no blood to speak of at all. Your hands are moving from my thighs to hold my face. I feel you, I _feel _you _everywhere_. My eyes finally pull into sharp focus, up at you.

Your face is struggling, against what I don't know, can only feel the same pull. Your hands muse through my hair before settling at the sides of my face again, then your eyebrows raise once. _Asking me…if I'm alright._

I can't move, can't speak, can hardly even _breathe_ beyond my lewd gasps, and then you lean in to brush our lips together quickly and barely there before…

I cry out again with a broken voice, completely helpless in your power as you thrust inside of me again. Not quick as much as smooth, and so _deep_… The rapid-fire, sheer brutality of your usual pummeling inside my ass from months past is gone, replaced by how _I've_ gone about breaching _your_ body…_oh_…

I'm showing how I've learned to trust you, but _you…_

You're showing what you've learned from me…about loving. Loving _me_.

You're thrusting at a steady cadence now, but still so _slow_, returning inside me every two seconds with each deep inhale into your lungs. I find myself picking up the same technique so I don't hyperventilate or pass out. I _won't_ let myself miss any second of this bliss. And what bliss it _is_…

My soft cries leave my parted lips between where your palms still rest on my face, when suddenly something in your movements and our conjunction just _clicks_ into place. An unbidden yelp comes from your throat, and my back arches off the bed of its own accord as my face screws up with a strangled shout. You nearly pause; you're already going so slow it's almost a negligible recess, but you use it to raise one of your palms to my perspiring forehead, tenderly stroking back into my soaked, matted hair.

"Shhshshsh…" you croon, pressing your lips to my nose as you initiate another push inside me, full and warm and slick, the missing half of my soul brushing closer against my own with every thrust. My arms have been uselessly at my sides, paralyzed with the rest of my body as I leave events entirely up to you, but now I shakily raise them to clutch your shoulders, clinging to you as my rock against the raging tide this gentleness has brought upon us both. I flex and contract around you, moan and arch beneath you, as our lips sometimes meet, sometimes hover an inch apart with no set order to it, our eyes fluttering open and closed and our breath rushing between us as one.

The way you hold my face and press soft kisses to me, how you move so slow and steady within me, and how I'm _responding _to it all, you'd think I was a virgin. But, honestly, that's not that far away from the truth in this circumstance. Yes, I've fucked and been fucked with you for eight months, and had countless women long before that, but tonight is something entirely new for me.

Never once before in all my life have I had another man _make love_ inside me like this.

At the sordid beginnings of this affair, I sometimes wondered if your cruel joke on the Batman was to change his entire orientation, but after privately researching into such things a bit further I invalidated that possibility – even to this day I'm still entirely attracted to women in general. But with you, every rule I thought I knew about my preferences crumbles. With you, there _are_ no rules. There's just _you._ With every breath you take, you sap my libido for anyone else and channel it all toward _you_, and _you_ alone.

I craved it; I'll admit that freely now, since everything is so abandoned and free in my soul now anyway. I craved the pain you gave me, every bruise and gash you inflicted in our fights for dominance in the city's heart, or – especially – what ghastly carvings you'd exact on my flesh in our nights of ugly passion. I would never have let things go as far as they did if I didn't need it in my bones as much as you do, as you _said_ we do. I'd never admit it to you then, but you still knew it was there. It was what you were trying to tell me all along.

But _this_…

This was what _I_ tried to tell you, without listening to my own lessons. I'm taking this test entirely unprepared, with no experience of tenderness from you to fall back on. And the way you're giving it to me, so…slow…so…deep and slow…and almost painle – FUCKFUCKOHFUCK, _JOKER – _

You've been just brushing past my prostate, but now you've hit it squarely with the head of your cock. My hips jolt up to meet yours in an instant, my arms seize around you tighter, and I'm crying your name up to you in prayer, in desperate supplication for more of your heated breath; of your hips' measured, confident rhythm against mine; of your firm body pressing closer and closer to me with our every motion; of your darkened eyes that light up so brightly as they bore into my soul with a glance; of your madness that sweeps me up into a world where I have purpose, I mean something, I mean something to _you_…

"_Bruce…_"

The shaken plea begs me to look at you, but I can't; you've buried your face at my left ear, and all I can see is your greased green curls that wisp by my cheek. Their quick movements betray that you're trembling as badly as I am, and your voice tells me exactly why.

"My _Bruce_…oh, _Bruce_…"

You gasp for life between your words, and then I know. You are the only person in the world who could fall in love with more than just Batman, and more than just Bruce. And I, both of those men yet neither one at all in this moment, am the only one who could love you as much as I do. A hand of mine tangles in your hair, not caressing nor clawing but somewhere in between, and I'm choking on your name as you are on mine.

Your head lifts up for another kiss, desperate for one last bit of contact, anything at all, and I can only comply briefly before we shout incoherencies again. You're so _right_ here, seeing how far I can be stretched, not ever wanting to break me but to cherish my life forever. "_Bat,_" you breathe against my lips, with a sense of savoring me. I'm being treasured by the man I'll die fighting, as he moves with greater urgency in and out of me, and I can't help but bite my lips to hold back a near-sob at this.

You've rested your forehead on mine, and I can't take it – I lift my chin up to find your lips again, but just can't strain up enough to reach them. The struggle we'll both die trying to conquer. Tonight is our test, not just yours or mine to show what we've learned, but _both_ of ours, to prove that tonight is stronger than anything else we've been founded upon. Proving it to the world – and to ourselves.

One of your hands has left my face, traveled downward on my body. You're – God, _yes_, it's wrapped around my cock, smoothly and surely spreading the precome up and down its length. I'm shaking so badly, bucking up into your hand and your hips.

"_Joker…_" I half-whisper, half-whimper to your keening moans above me, "_…please…_" Begging for your mouth to silence my emotions and your body to never stop what it's doing, because it's _so good _–

"Bruce…Bruce…_Bruce…_" you gasp above me between deep moans, your thrusts gathering more momentum with each one, but still so _sweet_, so _tender_, and you're dispensing this treatment all and only ever for _me_…

I groan loud and long when you send a choice push against my prostate, sending reactions up my spinal cord that I could never control if I wanted to. My body is thrashing and rippling with yours, as if we've become a fluid, fleshy serpent of one mind. Still you moan my name on your tongue, and I'm still whispering and pleading with yours, and everything's becoming a daze of movement and breath, pounding and tightening, touch and whispers.

"Jo – Joker…"

"Bruce…"

"God, Joker, _please_…"

"Bruce, my – _mine_ –"

"Fuck me…"

"My Bat…my –"

"FUCK ME –"

You pick up speed, with me following your pace.

"_Oh_, Bat, so…fucking _good_…"

"Joker…_my JOKER_…"

You cry out, and before we know it our eyes have met, never to leave anytime soon.

"_Bruce, my Brucey_…"

"Joker…_please, Joker, please…_"

"Dear _precious…_"

"Yours, I'm…you –"

"– belong to _you, _I –"

"– complete _me_ –"

"– love, I lo –"

_So…close…we're – _

"Love y –"

"_I LOVE YOU –"_

We drown in our screams. The world is nothing but white stars and emotion. Just as my balls tighten with that final squeeze that signals my orgasm just a second away, I see you go rigid and your face screw up into paradise and I just _know_ you're going to come _exactly_ when I am. From there, our eyes boggle into nothingness, you flood your come through my insides, while mine streams onto both our stomachs, pooling the ever-deepening heat through our spasm-wracked bodies.

It's still so _warm_ when it's over, even as aftershocks crackle through us both. We finally remember to breathe again, ragged and irregular as you shudder above my trembling body. I've collapsed completely from my arch into your chest as I rode out my orgasm, yet you're still holding yourself above me. The distance, although only a few inches more, is staggering after our impossible closeness a minute ago.

I only vaguely register that at some point our hands must have joined, for they still lay intertwined beside us, warm and intimate. We have no strength to squeeze more firmly, or maybe it's just me that's completely spent. You seem to be recovering faster.

A few more shaky breaths, and you push with your free hand gently on my thigh, easing yourself out of me. I feel your semen drip down, some of it to my entrance, as you withdraw, and my vision decides to shut down and leave me in a wonderland of blackness and touch.

Then not even touch, as you leave my flesh entirely and climb off the bed. I can only scarcely hear your bare footsteps pad into my bathroom. There's nothing I can do, so I don't even try to croak out your name to call you back.

Time to rest, after what we just did, and what we _said_.

What _I_ said.

Is that water running? Maybe my mind has finally cracked all the way down the middle. Whatever just happened, it feels _wonderful_. My calming heartbeat is sending pulse after pulse of this tingling warmth to my extremities. My muscles are loosening, finally _relaxing_. I'm collapsed on my back on top of my bed, eyes closed to enjoy this moment. I feel released. I am content.

Simple contentment grows into a deeper delight I can't name beyond that of a rogue playing card as I hear, no, _feel_ you returning. I'm curious as to what you're going to do, but my eyes remain closed. I'll find out soon enough.

_Oh_.

A gentle brush of fabric on my inner thigh, where someone's semen wound up. It softly rubs along the contour of muscle, further up my leg, and I can't help but smile faintly at the sensation.

Your ministrations move to my other thigh, performing the same treatment of cleaning me off while pleasuring me even _after_ sex. I let it happen as I gather my strength for whenever I decide to move next.

Both my thighs cleaned, you spread the damp washcloth you obtained to my stomach, wiping my ejaculate away. My abs don't even flinch at your touch; maybe because they're too worn out, or maybe because I'm so used to your unpredictability by now that I can welcome every unexpected move of this nature.

A deep sigh escapes my nostrils when you run the rag down my cock, which, though overly sensitive post-coitus, sends signals of approval to my brain. The intimate action wasn't meant for arousal – that's physically impossible at this point; rather, you and I both know it speaks of meanings far beyond simple sexual desire. Meanings we voiced to each other not minutes ago.

A cloth-wrapped thumb traces the slit, making me inhale sharply yet softly, and then lowers underneath to my testicles. My head slumps slightly to the side in the quiet rapture of _that_ gesture. You fondle me for a few moments of utter peace, then swipe down my entrance a few times where your semen is starting to leak out.

I take that moment to move, and grab a soft hold of your wrist, halting your caresses. You let me change the direction of your arm, and you're staring right at me when I open my eyes to see the rag. My grin widens when I take note of what wasn't included in what you wiped clean from me.

_No blood._

My eyes leave the cloth and connect with yours. God, those eyes will _never_ fail to mesmerize me. Especially if you keep looking at me with as much feeling and warmth and _affection_ as you are now.

I calmly take the washcloth from your hand, and after a flitting second of consideration, continue with the original motion and lay it on top of the nightstand. I could wash your already-faded and smeared makeup off right now, but at the moment I don't really want to. Your face underneath, fair and freckled as I've seen it when monitoring you in Arkham, can wait for another night. Tonight, it's your _real_ face that I want.

Your hand reaches to my forehead, moving across it and stroking down my temple, to my cheek, to my jaw. You smile, and I smile back. You're leaning back over me now, and I reach the sides of your face to pull you closer into our tender, barely-there kiss. It lulls and starts again, following no set rhythm, just the wills of our hearts.

It pauses, and we hold scarcely apart, before my eyes quietly open to yours again. That same old lock of your hair is stuck to your sweat-coated forehead, and I gently tuck it behind your ear, then trace your ear shell with my fingertips.

"I love you," you whisper, your eyes never leaving mine.

So unbidden, such an unprovoked statement. Yet you beat me to saying it. I let out a breath, part-sigh at you, part-laugh at myself.

I lean up slightly and press a kiss to your face, just below your right eye that closes instantly at the contact. My breath replaces my lips when I release them. "Love you, too," I murmur into your skin.

Your breath slowly leaves you at my words, to the point where I can just _feel_ the happiness radiating off your body. Or maybe it's my own joy at the words being spoken to you. Most likely both.

You descend from your lean over me, resting on top of me with your head tucked under my chin. I brush another kiss to your hair before letting the warmth and the pleasant exhaustion of satisfaction take over us both, as we bask in each other's heat for the next few foreseeable hours. Who knows when we'll break this spell next, when we'll summon our unyielding hate for each other's principles and vow to beat the shit out of the other the next time we meet. But until then, we can indulge in this new level of our ever-evolving relationship, and there are two things I can say with absolute certainty.

You passed your test with flying colors.

And maybe, in this constantly shifting world we've created for ourselves, we just might be able to make this work.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Yay. Graphic, senseless Joker-making-love-to-Bruce. I applaud you both, my good men, for the smashing performance you put on for the readers. Hopefully the critiques will be coming soon…*cough cough*. *takes thought-channeling device off Bruce's head; or rather his dick, since this fic was overbearingly about his sex drive***

**And if (this is a long shot) any of the Carpe DIem team members *happen* to be reading this (who knows if slash, this fandom, or this pairing is your thing in fanfic, idk), Catherine thanks you for both the wonderful eXtreme experience in Lubbock this weekend, and for electing to read one of the many perverted gay fantasies that flits through her head nonstop. :3 I only got to hang with you guys for a couple hours, but you all are amazing and I'll never forget you. NARWHAL!**

**And yes, this was in progress all throughout the Tournament weekend. My dirty little secret. XP**


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